


Los Angeles

by thelittleone86



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Post-Bae Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittleone86/pseuds/thelittleone86
Summary: Chloe is staring at the reminder of someone she's lost.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Los Angeles

Chloe sits on one of those uncomfortable chairs you find in hospitals or the waiting room of a clinic. The tattoo parlor is tiny, tucked away in a dingy commercial building on one of downtown Seattle's less busy thoroughfares. It is accessed by the back, a door that opens onto an alley and that she would not have found if she had not been told where to look.

  
This is not the first time that she has found herself waiting her turn on one of these chairs. Two weeks earlier she had been sitting in the same chair, Max by her side to give her a bit of courage as she met the artist with the shaved hair and the piercing that was heartily recommended to her.

  
Chloe hadn't been to a tattoo parlor since ... Since Rachel. How she would like her blond angel to be still by her side as she was for each of the previous tattoos.

  
Leaning forward, resting on her knees and staring at the tattoo that covers her arm, her fingers delicately travel the contours of the vines and the skull she has sported for years now. It all seems so far away now.

  
With this tattoo, Chloe first had the idea to anger Joyce. A little to show David and all those other assholes that she could do whatever she wanted too. The first sketches taking shape between two joints, becoming more and more complex with the support and ideas of Rachel.

  
It was she who had found a meaning for practically every element, butterflies, flowers... She was so invested in the idea that one would have thought it was hers. That it was she who would wear the tattoo on her body.

  
Rachel had been with her every step of the way thereafter. They got their first tattoo at the same time, in a Portland salon that hadn't looked at their fake cards for too long when they ran away for the first time. An adventure that had ended earlier than expected. With their meager savings squandered on tattoos, Chloe and Rachel had to resolve to return to Arcadia Bay after just two days.

  
That didn't stop them from starting over, running to Portland to add even more detail and color to the tattoo.

  
Now Chloe was looking at this memento mori, a lump in her throat and her heart loaded with memories. Happy memories but also the memory of the immense void left by the departure of her angel.

  
"Do you think it would be easier if you had it blacked out?" Max had asked when she caught her starring one of those nights.

  
One of those nights when Chloe couldn't find rest, even after a session of vaping and the endless breathing exercises. Max who always seemed to be able to read her emotions as if she were transparent, as if she couldn't hide anything from her anymore.

  
Rachel was gone, dead for months and sometimes still Chloe would turn around abruptly as she heard a crystalline laugh, expecting to see her beaming smile and eyes sparkling a few steps behind, as if it had all been one bad dream. But the nightmare didn't seem to want to end and on other occasions, as her gaze wandered over the tattoo, flashes of that horrible night came back to her and she swore she could smell the stench again.

  
These are the moments when reality is too harsh, when emotions take over and she has to fight with the urge to run away and close in like an oyster that pushed her towards the idea of covering the tattoo. A way to erase bad memories and hide the pain.

  
_Do you think it would be easier if you had it blacked out?_ Maybe also Max was right.

  
Maybe it wouldn't be easier to look at a black sleeve. Maybe that would only remind her that the pain and sadness is only buried deep within her, waiting for a door to open, for a rift to appear to slip to the surface again.

  
"Hey Chloe!" The tattoo artist came to interrupt her musings. It was finally her turn. "Are we still covering it up?"

  
The tone was neutral, her voice steady but in the eyes of the woman in front of her, Chloe could tell that she understood the importance of this tattoo and the pain behind it. It was by taking a deep breath, like those damn exercises, and blinking her eyelids to brush away all traces of the tears that threatened to form in them that Chloe sat up.

  
"Actually I had a change of heart. If you don't mind, I think we will do something different."

  
From her back pocket she pulled out a sheet of paper which she tried to unfold as best she could. She gave it one last look and held out the sheet with a smile.

  
"It's all about going forward now."

**Author's Note:**

> Song suggestion for this work: [Gone Away](https://youtu.be/a_rxzwZuTQ0)  
> I have read many fanficsin which Chloe chose to blacken her tattoo. I have always found that hiding the memory of what she went through with Rachel couldn't be a real solution. I wanted to share my opinion in this work.


End file.
